"It is too bad," said the captain, and then, listening for a moment, he
said: "I truly believe that Maka is snoring, too, and as for that black
fellow over there, I suspect that he sleeps all the time. Miss Markham,
you have been the only person awake."

"Why shouldn't I be?" said she. "I am sure that a woman is just as good
as a man for keeping watch."

"If they should come," thought the captain, as he again sat in the dark,
"I must not try to fight them in the passage. That would have been my
best chance, but now some of them might pick me off from behind. No, I
must fight them in this chamber. I can put everybody else in the middle
apartment. Perhaps before to-morrow night it might be well to bring some
of those loose rocks here and build a barricade. I wish I had thought of
that before."

The captain sat and listened and thought. His listening brought him no
return, and his thinking brought him too much. The most mournful ideas of
what might happen if more than two or three of the desperadoes attacked
the place crowded into his mind. If they came, they came to rob, and they
were men who left behind them no living witnesses of their whereabouts or
their crimes. And if two or three should come, and be repulsed, it would
not be long before the rest would arrive. In fact, the only real hope
they had was founded on the early return of Rynders--that is, if Rynders
and his men were living.

The captain waited and listened, but nothing came but daylight. As
soon as he was able to discern objects outside the opening on the
plateau, he awoke Maka, and, leaving him on guard, he made his way to